


To Make A Deal With God

by acommontater



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old Together, Suddenly having to deal with mortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23554651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater
Summary: Another one of the few things that their respective former sides seem to agree on is that being mortal is a punishment. One appropriate for traitors siding with humanity.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	To Make A Deal With God

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mostly because I'm an angst writer at heart and needed to put it all somewhere to get it out of my system before working on other things. Sometimes you just gotta have a little heartache. (This was mostly written several months ago so absolutely no hard feelings for anyone noping out.)

Another one of the few things that their respective former sides seem to agree on is that being mortal is a punishment. One appropriate for traitors siding with humanity.

Fortunately, between the two of them they’d had just enough sense to have things set up in human ways, so things like money and a place to live aren’t any object. Getting used to almost-completely-proper-human bodies takes time.

Aziraphale learns to sleep (Crowley had been delighted to introduce him to the concept of afternoon naps.).

Crowley learns to eat regularly (Aziraphale despairs over him never having a large appetite) and to give into the instinct to blink over perfectly normal human eyes.

They adjust and life goes on more or less the same as it had before, with some minor inconveniences that are inevitable with humanity.

There are thankfully as many small delights as there are inconveniences- They retrod their steps in the museums as Aziraphale delights in watching Crowley rediscover the art with the knowledge of the full color spectrum. Crowley attends the small concerts given by the community choir Aziraphale joins now that his singing voice would no longer send humans into fits of rapture. They both learn to cook properly. (Crowley finds a knack for baking, while Aziraphale cheerfully discovers every variation of how to roast.)

After a few years, they decide to retire to a small seaside cottage. It’s lovely, and planning and managing the garden keeps Crowley distracted for a good long while.

There are some things that they don’t discuss.

For example, the knowledge that the bodies they had been forcefully and permanently loaned were now effected by the flow of time. And that they had been given them in the states that they’d kept them at before Armagen-didn’t.

Crowley finds his first silvery hair and plucks it out viciously, determinedly not thinking about how his not-quite-an-angel-anymore’s hair is properly completely silvery-grey now.

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything, but his old walking stick that had been in fashion decades ago has reappeared for their walks to and from town if they go to market or for a stroll or out for dinner.

Crowley doesn’t say anything, just lends him an arm when they walk up stairs or hills or particularly uneven ground. Aziraphale always beams at him as he takes him arm, sometimes with a ‘Thank you, dear boy.’ or a pat on the cheek. Crowley doesn’t comment on how deeply the dear wrinkles on his angel’s face are starting to carve.

He’s out in the garden on a warm summer day when reality comes crashing down on them. There’s a sudden sound of something quite heavy hitting the ground and Crowley is in motion before he can even register the yell of pain.

“Aziraphale? …Oh fuck.”

Crowley dashes over to where Aziraphale is in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs. He is greeted with a pained grimace.

“Oh, my dear. I fell. I think-” Aziraphale gasps in pain when he tries to shift.

“Don’t move you bloody idiot-”

“-I think it’s my hip.”

“Right, right. Stay _still_ , I’m calling an ambulance.”

Aziraphale spends a week in the hospital post-op. Crowley spends nearly all of his time there as well.

They don’t talking about it. Not for what it really means.

/

It’s another decade before they’re back at the hospital.

“My dear boy, I am _fine_ -”

“You are not _fine_ , angel, you can’t fucking _breathe_ right, it’s been _weeks_ -”

“Fell?” The nurse calls. They stop bickering for a moment, Crowley clutching Aziraphale’s hand as they go back.

They listen and say they have to run some tests and take an x-ray and Crowley feels like he might jump out of his skin as they poke and prod and take samples from his angel.

They get results in less than a week.

Stage four, the doctor tells them, as gently as she can. She’s terribly sorry, but sorry isn’t medicine.

They can do comfort at this point, she says, for a few years. Maybe five or six at most, if they’re very, very lucky.

Aziraphale thanks her, says they’ll discuss the options, pulling them up to stand with Crowley’s somewhat catatonic hand in his own.

“You knew.” Crowley manages, parked in their driveway. Aziraphale is quiet.

“I.. suspected.” He answers softly. “I studied quite a lot of medicine through the ages.”

“Right.” Crowley gets out of the car on autopilot, walking around to open Aziraphale’s door for him.

/

Crowley stares up at the night sky, the stars twinkling down.

“Why him?” He asks, tiredly. “He did everything you asked of him. Would one last miracle be truly too much to ask?”

The stars continue as they always have, and Crowley waits for an answer he knows won’t come.

/

“Of course, you’ll still have time left, after I’m gone.” Aziraphale says calmly over dinner one night.

Crowley thunks his glass down from where he’d been taking a sip.

“Don’t talk like that, angel.”

“It needs to be talked about, my dear.”

“No, no we fucking don’t. Not-” He points a shaking finger. “Not after all this time not talking about it.”

“Crowley, I need to know that you’ll have a plan for the remaining few decades of your life.” Aziraphale sets his spoon down. “I need to know that you’ll be alright.”

“Well, I won’t be. You’ll be dead, of course I won’t bloody well be _alright_ , Aziraphale.” Crowley spits.

“Well no, not right away. But you’ll have time to heal. Do other things.” Aziraphale’s tone is determined, as if for Crowley to consider becoming anything other than healthy and moving on would be unbearable.

Crowley pushes his bowl of soup away, feeling sick.

“You expect me to just… get over being in love with you for over six thousand years, angel? Even if I had all of eternity left-” They should have had that, they should have had all of time left with each other, they _should have_ \- “-I wouldn’t heal from that kind of loss.”

“I know. I wouldn’t either, if the situation were reversed. Come here, my dear.” Crowley lets himself be tugged out of the kitchen over to the couch to flop comfortably into Aziraphale’s lap. He hides his face in his angel’s shoulder and Aziraphale buries his hand in Crowley’s hair, stroking soothingly through the tresses.

“I want you to be able to find ways to be happy.” Aziraphale whispers, voice cracking. “We should have had all of time together, and now…”

Crowley shakes in his arms and for the night, they let themselves grieve for the future they should have had.

/

It’s quiet in the end.

They are sitting out in the garden. Aziraphale’s chair is heaped high with blankets to keep him from getting chilled. (He’s thin in a way that Crowley has never seen, a way that he hates.) The sunset had been beautiful over the sea and now they were stargazing.

“Oh.” Aziraphale says suddenly. Crowley squeezes his hand. “It’s time, my dear.”

“What?”

Aziraphale turns great shining eyes to look at him. He struggles for a moment before pulling his other arm out of the cocoon of blankets to cup Crowley’s cheek.

“I love you, dearest. Please make your choices wisely.”

Crowley stares at him, lets himself be gently kissed.

“No, wait, no, you-”

“She gave me a moment to say goodbye.” Aziraphale smiles tremulously. “Goodbye, my love.”

There is no sudden thunderclap or pouring rain. There’s no last breath or limp hand in Crowley’s.

There is simply an empty chair with empty blankets and the lingering smell of a cologne that hadn’t been sold in decades.

/

Crowley had gathered up the blanket’s, gone inside to their bedroom, laid down, and stared at the wall.

He’d expected to cry. To sob, to yell, to scream.

Instead he feels numb. Shock, he thinks distantly. It’ll catch up to him eventually.

He falls asleep.

/

He wakes up, thrashing, from a nightmare that Aziraphale is gone and he can’t find him and…

His hand touches the cool empty side of the bed. The bundle of blankets.

Aziraphale is gone.

Crowley truly can’t find him, because he is gone.

The tears catch up to him then.

/

He takes up stargazing. His human eyes can see the skies clearly (with the help of thick glasses) in a way that his reptilian eyes had never managed.

Drives to the darkest, clearest skies he can find on the weather radar.

He likes to think that there’s a new star there, just to the left of the moon. Small and dim and there. (Well, maybe not there, it could have lived and collapsed in the eons of it’s time before the light ever made it to be visible from Earth.)

Maybe She took the stardust they’d been crafted from and let his angel shine somewhere else. Second to the left and straight on til morning in a place for impossible things.

(It is better to think him a star in some far-flung place that Crowley never touched than to think him truly gone.)

/

It takes time before he begins to interact with humans again. (It’s difficult to think of himself as human, even after the years spent being one.)

He goes back to London exactly twice, after.

Aziraphale had been exacting in his paperwork, so Crowley just had to be sure that his wishes were followed.

(Part of him wanted to keep the bookstore. To lock himself up inside of it and never leave, just let his human body expire in this home that they’d had.)

The books are kept in a private collection, to only be sold as funds are needed to support the nonprofit that the shop has been left to.

It’s a good location, they’ll be able to help people here. Aziraphale would be glad. (Crowley allows himself to smile when he hands over the keys to the new owners, who tearfully hug him and tell him how much it means to them.)

Crowley never returns to London after that.

/

“Why are you sad?”

Crowley looks up from where he’d sitting and staring across the small pond in the park. A small child stands in front of him, looking expectant.

“What?”

“You look sad. Why are you sad?”

“Because my husband died.” He's always found that being straight forward with children worked best.

“Why?”

“Because…” The universe is a cruel game. “He was sick and couldn’t get better.”

The child nods seriously.

“My nan was sick and died last year. It makes me sad too.”

“Right.”

“My mum said that she went away to Heaven and that it’s nice there. Do you think your husband is there with her? Maybe they are having tea.”

Crowley thinks of Heaven and internally grimaces.

“I dunno, that would be nice though. He did like a good cup of tea.”

The kid nods again, then jumps as a distant motherly voice sounds across the park. A moment later a young woman appears and takes the kid’s hand.

“What have I told you about getting out of my sight?” She notices Crowley. “And about bothering people?”

“But mum, he was sad, because his husband died, so I was just telling him that he’s probably having tea with Nan, because she always had tea ready, and…”

The mother looks over at Crowley as her kid continues to chatter.

“Sorry for your loss.”

Crowley waves a hand.

“Life, right?”

She nods in an understanding way, before tugging her child away.

“It’s time to go, we’ll be late.”

“Goodbye!” The kid waves cheerfully and Crowley automatically waves back.

“’bye.” He says, a beat too late.

/

When Crowley can finally bring himself to start going through the house- just the house now, it was their house and now it is not, so it is just The House now- he finds a folder with his name on it in Aziraphale’s desk in the library.

It takes another two weeks for him to be able to open the folder.

There are several pages of paper covered in Aziraphale’s neat handwriting (the centuries spent as a monastic scribe never fully faded). Each page contains labelled lists of options for Crowley to do. New things to commit himself to.

Assist in overseeing the community garden. Volunteer at various local establishments. Places to travel, local and beyond. Paint his study a new color. Take cooking lessons.

Pages and pages of possibilities and contacts.

The last page is oddly blank. Crowley spends a long time flipping it around and frowning before he recalls the stupid invention of invisible ink that had amused the angel several hundred years ago. He dashes to the kitchen and mixes a few options, carefully testing them until he finds a combination that works. He let’s out a soft whoop and grins in victory.

_My dear,_

_As I am sure you have glanced through all the papers I have left you and have gone directly to the last page to work backwards, I hope this little trick of mine made you laugh._

_I love you, and because I love you I want you to pursue happiness. You have found it before without my company and you will be able to manage it again._

_Now off you pop, I know that it’s been months by the time you read this._

_My love for always._

_-A_

/

Crowley finds a talented tattoo artist a town away and has Aziraphale’s words set to his skin.

 _My dear_ and _I love you_ , in Aziraphale’s precise delicate lettering on his wrists.

 _My love for always_ over his heart.

The letter will fade and crumble eventually. The ink will not.

/

He can finally take a deep breath, press his fingertips over his heart, and take a step forward into the next part of the rest of his life.

/

Many, many years later, astronomers are delighted to discover a new set of stars.

A previously undiscovered binary star system with a perfectly balanced set of orbits so that they blinked together in one bright light on each new year on Earth.

A remarkable find, people said. Nearly impossible odds to find such a distinct pattern somewhere so far flung from humanity.

Somewhere else, a cheerfully stoic poker dealer laughs and sets the game anew.


End file.
